Image processing apparatus and image forming apparatus

An image processing apparatus comprising:

• a storage device for storing a source image;
• a control device that includes a processor and, through the processor executing a control program, acts as:
• a character region identifier that identifies a character region in the source image;
• an image acquirer that acquires an image of the character region from the source image;
• an annotation line identifier that detects an annotation line in the character region, and identifies a position of the annotation line;
• a generator that generates, from the source image, a modified image not containing an image located outside the character region in the source image, and in which the annotation line has been deleted from the image of the character region;
• a line region identifier that identifies a line region located in the character region;
• an interlinear region identifier that identifies an interlinear region located between the line regions;
• a character data extractor that extracts a plurality of characters contained in the line region, and a plurality of pieces of position information indicating the respective positions of the plurality of characters, in association with each other;
• and
• a target character identifier that identifies, as a target character, a character corresponding to the position information indicating a position according with the position of the annotation line identified by the annotation line identifier, out of the plurality of pieces of position information extracted by the character data extractor,
• wherein the generator substitutes the target character in the line region with, among a predetermined plurality of characters, a character showing the highest degree of accordance with the target character, the degree of accordance being based on image similarity, and deletes the annotation line from the image of the character region, by deleting an image in the interlinear region.